The U.S. Treasury Department has paid out more than $100 billion in unemployment benefits in June, the most for a single month since the pandemic started and underscoring the importance of federal relief efforts to shore up a battered job market, Bloomberg News reported. The U.S. Treasury paid out $108.5 billion in unemployment benefits in June — the most on record dating back to 2005 — according to the department’s latest daily statement on Tuesday. That exceeded the $93.6 billion in May and $48.4 billion in April as the government continues to play catch up with the backlog in processing claims due to an overwhelming number of people applying for benefits. States have said that claims from as early as the start of February are finally making their way through the system. And with the average weekly claim amounting to a little less than $1,000 — which includes a temporary $600 pandemic benefit — backdated checks could amount to thousands of dollars. Despite the surge in payments in June, the numbers still fall short of the estimated $141.2 billion that should have been paid during the month, according to Bloomberg calculations based on weekly unemployment filings and the average size of those claims. The total estimated shortfall since March, when pandemic-related job losses began, now comes to about $105.3 billion, according to Bloomberg calculations.
